Amarista delivers big on birthday

Pinch-hit homer helps Padres snap four-game losing streak

The Padres' Alexi Amarista follows through on his three-run home run against the Miami Marlins in the seventh inning of an MLB National League baseball game in Miami, Sunday, April 6, 2014. Will Venable and Tommy Medica scored on the home run. The Padres won 4-2.
— (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

The Padres' Alexi Amarista follows through on his three-run home run against the Miami Marlins in the seventh inning of an MLB National League baseball game in Miami, Sunday, April 6, 2014. Will Venable and Tommy Medica scored on the home run. The Padres won 4-2.
/ (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

MIAMI  His offense reeling again as another right-handed power arm settled into deep groove, Bud Black had good reason to turn to the 5-foot-6 Alexi Amarista in the seventh inning Sunday afternoon.

Some of it even had to do with matchup logic. All of it did actually, even if the Padres manager saw the irony in the moment.

“Some guys were giving me a hard time – you always play a guy on his birthday,” Black said. “We didn’t start him, but he sort of showed me, I guess.”

He did indeed.

Amarista celebrated his 25th birthday with a pinch-hit, three-run homer that backed six strong innings from Ian Kennedy, all of it helping the Padres snap a four-game skid with a 4-2 win over Miami in front of a crowd of 22,496 at Marlins Park.

The blast not only helped the Padres (2-4) avoid a sweep – not to mention matching the 1-5 start that sent Black’s team spiraling toward the bottom of the NL West last April – it ended a scoring drought that spanned their last 18 2/3 innings and gave the Padres their first lead since a stirring come-from-behind win over the Dodgers on opening night.

Stat to note

.189 | The Padres' batting average (36-for-190) through the first six games of the season.

Yonder Alonso tacked on a run an inning later, Joaquin Benoit pitched a perfect eighth and Huston Street slammed the door on his second save in the ninth to send the Padres off to Cleveland on a high note.

“You hate to leave on a loss, especially a sweep,” Black said before noting just how strong Nathan Eovaldi (7 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 8K) started the game for the Marlins. “I really like the way we hung in there with Eovaldi. Ian did a nice job battling, we got a couple of guys on and one big swing by Lexi swung the momentum.”

In a hurry, too, essentially from 0 to 60 in the few seconds it took for his first career pinch-hit homer to clear the wall right.

After all, his team up 1-0 on Giancarlo Stanton’s run-scoring single in the fourth, Eovaldi (1-1) had just fanned Alonso for his eighth strikeout to start an inning that looked like it might go down like so many before it over the last four losses.

Two one-out singles – one from Will Venable and another from Tommy Medica – changed all that.

Really, Yasmani Grandal would have ended the Padres’ drought himself had Eovaldi not got his foot down in time to stop a hot shot from skipping past the mound and into center field.

His team clearly lacking in the luck department, Amarista then made some of his own as Kennedy’s pinch-hitter, fouling off six balls before depositing a 375-foot homer down the right-field line for a 3-1 lead

Needless to say, Amarista was happy to deliver.

“I felt more comfortable pitch by pitch,” Amarista said through an interpreter. “With two strikes, I tried to get something over the plate and at least get a hit to tie the game. I got in front of that breaking ball and hit it out of the park.